Title Boundary conditions accuracy effect on the numerical simulations of the thermal performance of building elements /
Authors Fokaides, Paris A ; Kylili, Angeliki ; Kyriakides, Ioannis
DOI 10.3390/en11061520
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Is Part of Energies.. Basel : MDPI. 2018, vol. 11, iss. 6, art. no. 1520, p. 1-19.. ISSN 1996-1073
Keywords [eng] building envelope ; numerical simulation ; boundary condition ; finite element method ; sinusoidal function
Abstract [eng] Numerical simulation is widely used in the field of computational building physics for the definition of the thermal performance of building elements. An integral component of numerical simulation using finite elements is the boundary conditions, which, in the case of simulating the thermal performance of a building element, are usually expressed in terms of the external surface temperature as a function of time. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the accuracy of the boundary conditions on the thermal performance simulation of building elements. The assumption that the temperature versus time is a sinusoidal function, applied in standard methods, is comparatively assessed with the actual function for diverse climatic conditions using finite elements simulation. The findings of the analysis indicate that the sinusoidal function fails to accurately simulate real boundary conditions. The originality of this study lies within the adoption of a signal reconstruction algorithm, which follows a novel approach by reconstructing the actual temperature versus time signal for the simulation of the actual boundary conditions.
Published Basel : MDPI
Type Journal article
Language English
Publication date 2018
CC license CC license description